Monthly Archives: December 2015

For the last half decade, ever since digital books and e-readers first came on the scene, news headlines have been at war. “The physical book is dead,” some reports declared, while others vehemently argued for the eternality of the printed word.

Data, actually, supports the latter sentiment. At least in the US, sales of physical books have experienced a renewed surge of interest, according to Nielsen BookScan, a data provider that collects data on roughly 85% of the print market.

As of early December 2015, Nielsen says, around 571 million paper books have been sold in the country—a modest but noticeable increase over the 559 million sold in 2014.

Publishers told the Associated Press this week that the rise of coloring books and books authored by YouTube stars this year seems to have contributed to Americans’ re-investment in physical books. The release of Harper Lee’s much-buzzed-about (albeit bizarre) second novel Go Set A Watchman also may have played a part; Lee’s book sold four times as many copies in hardcover as in e-book format, suggesting that most readers wanted to own a physical copy of the historic book, HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham told the AP.

While it’d be a stretch to say that the physical book is thriving, it’s at least staying strong. The same can’t be said of the e-book, which is seeing a decline in popularity. A Pew Research Center study in October found that fewer Americans are buying and using e-reading devices like Kindles and Nooks than they did in past years.

Assuming these trends continue, 2016 might just be the year that the physical book makes—fingers crossed—a real comeback.

Our tenth annual Poetry Out Loud contest is coming up soon. If you are having difficulty selecting a poem for your recitation, we have just added a new resource for this year’s competition – audio recordings of BHS students and staff reading poems that they’ve selected from the POL website. There are around 45 or so to choose from, and we hope to add to this list each year. Check them out – CLICK HERE!

On Monday, December 14, Fred Shine – Burlington resident and Vietnam veteran – came in to give a presentation to Mrs. Janovitz’s AP Literature classes and Mr. Lally’s sophomores. The AP students have been reading literature that discusses the role of the American soldier in society, and Mr. Lally’s sophomores had just completed the Vietnam novel, The Things They Carried. In his presentation, Mr. Shine discussed his experiences as a soldier, and his hard work in creating memorials for four American soldiers from Wilmington who died in Vietnam.

CLICK HERE to read Mrs. Janovitz’s post about the visit – it was great!

A recent New York Times article came out showing the results of a study across 42 countries of high-school aged children, and amid the findings was the following:

According to the article, Owning books in the home is one of the best things you can do for your children academically.

In fact, having a library of 100 or more books correlated to students having reading abilities 1.5 grade levels higher than average. What’s astonishing is that this was the second largest factor in all of the variables in having a positive impact on reading ability – only the GDP of the home country was a greater influence. Within countries, social status, race, and gender had less of an impact on reading ability than did the ownership of a large library.